


Revolutionary's Best Friend

by anthean



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: A Tiny Dog, Canon Era, Gen, Grantaire being disgusting, barfights, full chorus of drunk and belligerent Romantics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-01 04:42:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4006249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthean/pseuds/anthean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire gets some unexpected help in a barfight...from Bahorel and his tiny dog.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Revolutionary's Best Friend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [afamiliardog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afamiliardog/gifts).



> Afamiliardog prompted "Getting unexpected help in a barfight" and "I'm obsessed with the idea of Bahorel having a tiny yappy dog so maybe something with that" and instead of choosing between two such glorious prompts I decided to go with both. Hope you like it!

"—and that, my friends, is why _Death of Sardenapalus_ is utter trash: the paint would have been more use poured into the sewer, for there it could brighten the shit instead of blighting a canvas. I raise my glass to the death of the hours used to paint it, which could have been spent getting drunk, and thus been more productive. I would to God Delacroix had broken all his brushes, and as for Byron, I curse the day he first picked up a pen." Grantaire takes a gulp of wine. Across the table, his drinking companions stare at him, jaws hanging like stunned carp; he tells them so, and also takes the opportunity to inform the man sitting opposite him that his yellow-orange waistcoat would make the face of Hephaestus, were he to wear it, look comely by comparison.  
  
Beyond their table, Grantaire sees faces turning away from their conversations to stare, and silence is spreading through the cafe as more drinkers notice the disturbance. He supposes he had been talking quite loudly by the end.  
  
Orange Waistcoat—Jauffrey, he remembers—swallows and opens his mouth, no doubt to tell Grantaire exactly how to go fuck himself, but is interrupted by a ponderous clap. Half the room flinches, startled, and Grantaire turns.  
  
While Grantaire had been discoursing, a large man had entered the cafe unnoticed by its patrons. Now he walks forward, clapping slow heavy claps that shake the air of the silent cafe, to stand beside Grantaire's table. His entrance seems to have confused the crowd, diverted the attack that had been imminent. Something scuffles underneath the table, but Grantaire ignores it in favor of the drama that promises to erupt.  
  
"Bahorel, just in time," Jauffrey says, a muscle jumping in his neck. "We were about to teach this drunkard a lesson."  
  
Bahorel nods. "Were you?" he asks, but he's looking down at Grantaire, talking more to him than to the rest of the room.  
  
"Schoolmasters since childhood have judged me unable to be taught," Grantaire says. He shrugs. "As so many have reached the same conclusion, I'd consider it the height of rudeness to be anything other than the expected, and so strive to remain unteachable." He drains his cup, as he suspects the opportunity is rapidly disappearing. "And another thing: this wine is terrible."  
  
The crowd twitches; Bahorel laughs. "All right, boys," he says, clapping Grantaire on the shoulder, "have at it."  
  
And the room charges.  
  
Jauffrey lunges across the table at Grantaire, followed by his friend. Grantaire, caught still sitting, goes down immediately under their combined weight. He thrashes, taking an elbow to the cheekbone, but manages to knee Jauffrey in the gut. Jauffrey rolls away long enough for Grantaire to kick his other attacker aside, and then he's scrambling to his feet, upending a table onto Jauffrey and his friend before they can follow. He turns his attention to the rest of the fight. Bahorel is throwing punches in all directions to Grantaire's left; a hit from a shorter man lands solidly on his jaw, but Bahorel only grins harder. "Good shot, Fétique!" he shouts before wrestling the man into a headlock. Another man leaps onto Bahorel's back from behind, and Grantaire shoves a chair aside to haul the man away from Bahorel and throw him onto Jauffrey and his friend, who have just managed to disentangle themselves from the table.  
  
He gets in a few good hits after that, but the cafe is too crammed with tables and chairs for him to kick properly. His opponents are too drunk to mount any kind of coordinated attack, and are each now hitting anyone who comes into view, for any reason that seems good. Bahorel is still whaling away cheerfully at anyone who comes within range, but even his opponents seem to be losing interest. Grantaire casts a last look at Jauffrey and his friend, who have decided to cut their losses and are now huddled together under the wreck of the table, apparently engrossed in an argument about—hah!—the _Raft of the Méduse_.  
  
Grantaire leaves them to it and slips out the door, where Bahorel joins him a moment later. He's whistling through a split lip, which has to hurt like hell.  
  
"Well," Bahorel says, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and daubing at his lip, "that was an adventure. I had no idea Fétique could hit that hard."  
  
"Friends of yours?" Grantaire asks.  
  
"Oh, a little. We drink together, that makes us friends. You'll have a beauty of a bruise, come tomorrow," Bahorel says, tapping his cheekbone.  
  
"My face is only improved by bruising, many a young lady— _ow_ —has told me so," Grantaire says, poking his cheekbone himself and wincing. Bahorel just laughs, which Grantaire appreciates. Out in the night, the cafe windows glowing across the street and the cobbles rough through his boots, the fight seems pointless. He doesn't even know why he went inside in the first place. Inside the cafe, the sounds of fighting have lessened to the usual convivial roar of a thoroughly drunk cafe in the Quartier Latin on a Friday night. As Grantaire listens, a voice rises above the clamor, chanting "The Destruction of Sennacherib" in thickly-accented English. "Well, thank you. I'm glad not to have been your opponent tonight," Grantaire says.  
  
"And here's the other you must thank," Bahorel says, pointing to the cafe door. A tiny dog trots out, making a strangely muffled yapping noise, plumed tail waving proudly in the air. Up close, the dog barely comes up to Grantaire's shin, and its fur stands out around its body in a nervous cloud. A ribbon of bright bloody red is tied in the fur above its forehead.  
  
Grantaire picks the dog up and plucks a torn piece of fabric out of its mouth. Yellow-orange brocade—it's Jauffrey's. _Good_ dog. The impediment removed, the dog begins yapping in full voice, little paws scrabbling at the air in impotent rage and badly scuffing Grantaire's own waistcoat. No matter; it's streaked with paint anyway, the trophies of his latest attempt to rally some enthusiasm for an artistic career. He stuffs the piece of fabric back into the dog's mouth to muffle the barking a little. "Who—what is this?" he asks Bahorel, who is grinning foolishly at the dog.  
  
"This, my friend, is Arise-Citizens-And-Rain-Fire-And-Death-Upon-The-Aristocrats." He takes the dog from Grantaire and cradles it belly-up in his arms. The dog—God! What a name!—waves its feet in the air to absolutely no effect.  
  
"Arise-Citizens-And-What?" Grantaire repeats, incredulous.  
  
"Fine Republican name," Bahorel says. "You may call her Mimi, if you must." Mimi wriggles ecstatically upon hearing her name.  
  
"I'm not sure I wouldn't rather have taken my chances with the Romantics," Grantaire mutters, "rather than fall in with a Republican dog and her attached madman."  
  
"Behold, the gratitude we receive," Bahorel tells Mimi, who growls back at him— _not_ in agreement, Grantaire tells himself. "The two often go together, as I'm sure you know."  
  
"Republicanism and Romanticism. Yes, they go together, just like a whore and the clap, or mold and old fruit. Does one cause the other, as eating a bad oyster will give you the shits? Contagion begets contagion. Humanity will always find new ways to poison itself. We sicken and sicken until some sorry bastard decides beheading is the only cure; well, the operation may be successful, but the body is still dead—"  
  
"Here," Bahorel says, shoving Mimi into Grantaire's arms. She barks next to his ear. "She likes you."  
  
"She has terrible taste, both in friends and," Grantaire pulls the piece of fabric out of Mimi's mouth, "in waistcoats."  
  
"I'd say her choice of which waistcoat to shred demonstrates that she has very good taste indeed," Bahorel says.  
  
"I don't know why she hasn't set her teeth in yours, then," Grantaire retorts.  
  
"Because we _match_ ," Bahorel says, gesturing to Mimi's red ribbon and smoothing his own blazing scarlet waistcoat.  
  
Silence falls between them, a little awkward. Grantaire could thank Bahorel again and leave, find another cafe and drink until he can't remember this conversation, or go back to his rooms and stare at his empty canvasses. He could, or—  
  
"Do you fight singlesticks?" Grantaire asks. "Or savate? I go to Fleury's studio most afternoons." He leaves the thought hanging, not quite an offer.  
  
"Only informally, but I suppose I could do with a little more organized practice," Bahorel says thoughtfully. "And now, can I buy you a drink and introduce you to the friends I do not, as a general rule, punch?"  
  
"Why not?" Grantaire tucks Mimi more firmly under his arm, her paws paddling the air, and they set off down the street.

**Author's Note:**

> [The Death of Sardanapalus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Sardanapalus) was painted in 1827 by Delacroix and was inspired by a play by Lord Byron. [The Raft of the Medusa](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raft_of_the_Medusa) is another famous Romantic painting; please feel free to imagine Jauffrey and his buddy as the two dying dudes down in front. Finally, Arise-Citizens-And-Rain-Fire-And-Death-Upon-The-Aristocrats's name is based on the, uh...[inventive names](http://www.nancy.cc/2011/09/09/revolution-era-names-in-france/) that appeared after the French Revolution. It's a little more ridiculous than any of the examples I could find, but I figured Bahorel would subscribe to a "go big or go home" school of dog-naming.


End file.
